Just Waiting
by Thriving Willow
Summary: There was either Lisa and Ben or Sam and Dean. There was no in-between, no Lisa and Dean and Ben, no Sam without Dean. No up without a down. Right? Tag to 5x22


AN: The idea for this story came with a brief but intense vividness. I needed to make myself happy, to stop _hurting _over this stupid, addictive show. Thus a story, after me being dead to the FF world for...too long. Really, I'm just starting in the Supernatural world, and I'm scared out of my wits.

Disclaimer: Just playing with the molds of the Supernatural world. I own nothing.

Dead still slept light at a cat. He may be _normal _and _rational _and work at the local mechanic's shop. But he still slept so light that the creak of the stairs had him awake and ready.

His eyes snapped open, his fingers twisting in the light blanket around him. Fall was coming but he still preferred the light blanket and the heater up—made getting out of bed in a hurry a hell of a lot easier. Specifically for moments like this. He stripped away the blanket carefully, making sure he didn't jostle Lisa. She shifted slightly, but settled back into her pillow.

So serene. For a half second, Dean was hit by how much he loved her. Her strength, her trusting nature, and her kindness. It was what he'd needed, someone innocent and gentle, a peacemaker and confident. Someone who hadn't lived and breathed the supernatural world their whole life.

If Dean ever thought about Sam these days—which he _doesn't—_Lisa would remind him of his middle brother. Dean winced. Yeah, he sucked at not thinking sometimes.

The familiar blistering hole of where there was not-Sam flared. He briefly wondered if it would ever get easier, ever stop demanding half his attention at all times, in sleep, in work, in play, in his everyday normal apple-pie life. He doubted it.

Some days he felt ripped in two—half of him wanting to find some way to end the empty days, to repel the desolate wake Sam's sacrifice had left. He wanted to leave the car, the house, the pretty girlfriend, the kid, and just walk. Nothing but the shirt on his back and the boots on his feet. Wanted to just stop living—stop feeling—and let himself crumble. It got close. Sometimes Lisa had to work overtime and Ben was having a sleepover with his best friend a few streets over, Jeff Biggalow. The house was empty. The rooms were silent. No Sam. No. Sam. And why did Dean have to stay here again?

And then there were the days when Lisa and Ben filled up what they could. Lisa would make homemade lasagna, followed by apple pie made from the neighbor's apple tree. Dean would laugh at a joke Ben would make, honestly and truly amused by the kid's spunk. Or the day that he'd taken Lisa out to buy flowers to plant in the front yard—they'd ended up with hydrangeas, tulips, and a rose bush—and Ben had tagged along, even helping them put the plants in the ground. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Ben had baseball practice, and Dean had happily taken up the task. At first it had all been attempts to get thoughts of Sam out of his head, to simply not have time get on his mangled thought-track. But somewhere along the way, Dean realized that he simply adored anything and everything Ben, and he felt strange when he didn't see Lisa for long periods of time. He looked forward to the summer evenings of swinging in the hammock they'd hung up in the back yard; Lisa nestled in his side, sharing a blanket and a book…

It didn't feel right, per say, but, somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling so horribly, terribly wrong. As much as he wanted to feel guilty for being somewhat at peace, he knew Sam would be ecstatic that Dean wasn't a puddle of girly, suicidal tears. It helped a little, but not much.

Dean was jerked out of his Lisa-watching, forgot about his stupid sissy musings, when there was another creak down the hall. Something like lightning crackled through Dean's muscles, and he was suddenly at his own door. There was a fire-like protection instinct kicking in. It was something similar to what he'd felt every time he'd realized that Sammy—Dean unconsciously flinched—was in peril's way. Because this was Lisa and Ben. If Dean couldn't have his brother, than he sure as hell wasn't going to give up what little he did have left.

He'd always had something akin to night vision, and it didn't fail him now. He paused a half-second at the bookshelf next to his door, and slid his hunting knife from behind the Bible and Lisa's thick medical history book. He hadn't touched it in nearly four months, but it fit perfectly in his grip, and the comforting weight settled deeply within him.

His door was already slightly ajar, and he nudged it very carefully with his bare toes. There was a flicker of black at the end of the hall, a darkness moving against the night. He slid through his door, glad that the only way to get to Lisa's room was back down the hall—whatever was in the house would have to go through him before it got to Lisa. Ben, however, was another matter.

Horribly unprotected, and in a moment of panic, Dean wondered if this was what Dad had felt while the boys was growing up.

Dean half-ran, half-glided down the hall, cautious of the closed doors and deeper shadows. Ben's door was at the end of the hallway, and Dean flicked the door open.

Ben's breathing was even, his hair half covering his eyes. After he gutted whoever was roaming the house, he'd remind Lisa that it needed to get cut.

The room was empty, and Dean slipped back out of the room, his relief that Ben was safe and sound crashing with his boiling anger that someone was still here, someone who obviously didn't belong.

There was that flicker again, one shadow merging with another at the bottom of the steps. Dean might have only officially moved in a month ago, but he knew the ins and outs of the house by heart and that shadow didn't belong.

Outlined by the streetlamps outside the house, the figure shifted. Dean straightened at the top of the stairs.

"I didn't mean to scare you," The darkness murmured, voice so soft that Dean couldn't pick out any defining qualities in it. Male or female, familiar or alien, he had no way of knowing. The shadow was just as sexless and undefined, which didn't really bode well with Dean. It messed with his 'gutting the intruder' plan.

"Get out," Dean growled just as carefully. The last thing he wanted was Ben or Lisa to come stumbling out of their safe, warm beds. He wished he had his gun—the colt, maybe—but it was hidden in the recess of the backyard shed.

The figure shrugged, and for a half second, Dean could make out tan and long and familiar—and suddenly he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or pissed.

"_Cas," _He ground out, so thankful that it wasn't anything more dangerous than an angel with a bad sense of humor, and mad because Cas being there didn't help Dean _not _to remember.

The shadow shrugged, and he stepped into what little light the night had to provide. "Sorry," He offered, but it didn't sound like sorry, it sounded like '_I'm a stuck up dick again' _and, quite frankly, Dean didn't want to deal with it.

And why was there still unfamiliar shadow, even though Cas had stepped forward?

Dean stiffened, thoughts speeding up again. "Who's your friend?" He asked casually, but tightened his grip on the knife, taking a couple more steps down.

The shadow seemed to shrink back as Dean moved forward. Cas frowned, moving in step with the shadow. It left the angel between Dean and the unknown person.

"Who is it, Cas?" Dean repeated, trying to bite down on his anger and failing. Cas was okay, in a very limited sense, but if Cas was going to start dragging his angel buddies into his house—his house? When did it become _his_ house?—at ungodly hours, Dean was going to have to share a few choice words with his once-friend.

"Look, Cas, nice of you to stop by, really, but—"

"We were unsure what to do with her," Cas interrupted bluntly, shifting, and for a second, Dean saw the ninety-nine percent human Cas had been only a few short months ago. It made Dean pause halfway down the stairs. Not much made Cas nervous, especially now that he had his mojo back. Cas was still rambling, too. "We think—we're almost sure it was God. She showed up, and now—and there was nowhere else we could think to take her. The other angels were just going to throw her down here but I…_talked_ them into letting me bring her down personally."

"Whoa, whoa, cool it, man," Dean padded down a few more steps, thoroughly confused now. "What are you talking about? Who's this 'her'?" But the shadow shifted again, and Dean was close enough to see the outline of a girl—a young woman—half huddled in on herself. Wide blue eyes, full of confusion, pain, and shock, staring at him. It took Dean another half second to recognize the strangely familiar long blond curls, the tall figure, and the pretty features.

The blow was unexpected, and it _hurt. _Dean hadn't hurt this bad in at least a couple weeks. Because it was Jessica—scared out of her mind, looking haggard and flimsy, but Sam's Jessica, alive and kicking.

The blue eyes narrowed, and her chin jerked out a little, a motion made from pure stubbornness, Dean could tell. "I know you," The word was underlined with so much accusation that Dean blinked, finally coming to a halt at the bottom step. Another blink, and her face was crumbling again. "You're Sam's brother," She sounded so wounded, so hurt.

Her hands were wrapped around her shoulders, but one twitched, her gaze flicking to the back of Castiel.

At the moment, Dean didn't care what she did—he was still trying to shove back the dam that had just broken inside him, releasing a tidal wave of pain. This was someone who Sam had wanted to share the rest of his life with, someone he had loved so deeply it almost destroyed him when she'd died. She'd once had a place in Sam's heart, a place that no one else could fill, not Dean, not Bobby, not Dad.

Dean knew all that; they were background thoughts, though. The rest of him was simply screaming _Sam. _Hurting in so many ways. He wasn't really aware of it, but he was suddenly gripping his pendent—four little, inconspicuous rings rattled next to it—so tight, his fingers ached and pulsed. He didn't note the discomfort. No, he was still trying to reboot his lungs. He wasn't sure if it was ice or fire clogging up his veins, but it was making everything burn one way or another.

And there was no Lisa, no Ben, no part-time job, no lazy Sunday afternoons. There was just _Dean _and _Sam _and the hole Sam had left behind when he'd teetered into the depths of Hell.

That scared him more than he wanted to admit. That he'd drop this new life, quick as lightning, without a second's thought. And maybe it was the freshener Lisa used—some mix between lavender and vanilla—or the feel of the clean carpet on his bare toes, but Dean jerked in a choppy breath and reality slipped in.

Lisa and Ben didn't deserve that kind of liability. He could do some serious damage to little Ben. And there was no going back from something like abandoning a little kid's hopes and dreams, from throwing away all the love and adoration Ben poured into Dean.

Dean cleared his throat, reaching out blindly, desperate for something solid, because his legs just weren't going to cut it. They were wobbling, dipping and weaving. Like noodles, he noted distantly.

Sammy had liked pasta. Hadn't he? Or had that been Dad? With a feeling of growing dread, Dean realized that he couldn't remember. Whether it had been Dad or Sam. It was very important, suddenly.

"Cas," His voice sounded choked off and broken, and there was a hand wrapped firmly around his bicep. He still couldn't see strait, but there was a chair under him now and a steadying hand. It gave him enough strength to scrape up what dignity he had left, to wrap up what hurt he could, and just in time for Cas and—her to sit in front of him.

"You're heartbeat has picked up, Dean. You must calm down,"

Dean wanted to snap something vicious like '_My brother is in Hell. I can freak out if I want.' _But he only managed a wheezy, "Grand time to start worrying about blood pressure, Cas. A few years too late, though, but thanks." His knife was gone; he flexed his right hand, mind trying to unfreeze, to catch up with the way Dean's body was reacting.

The sarcasm was lost to Cas. "You're welcome,"

Dean forced his eyes to clear, even if to just glare up at Cas. "You can throw away the welcome committee act. What do you want?" Dean couldn't keep his gaze from flicking to the half illuminated face of Jess, and maybe he was just a little too fed up with everything.

Dean leaned forward, dropping his head between his knees—maybe it would help make the room stop swimming. "What do you want, Cas?" Dean repeated, digging his knuckles into his eyes until lights flashed behind his lids. The slight discomfort didn't distract him near enough from the pain that was still writhing under his skin.

There was the squeak of Cas's jacket rubbing against the leather seat he was perched on. "They—we—I was unsure where else to bring her,"

"I can take care of myself," Came the slightly shaky but plenty defiant response.

Dean rolled his head up to where he could just barely make out Cas's face. It flicked in something akin to annoyance. "You're knowledge of the paranormal world is very limited. Your connection to this family is irrevocable, thus putting you in harm's way. Dean Winchester is the best candidate to insure your survival until we can further work out an applicable solution."

Dean didn't bother to look up at Jessica. Because he was a wimp these days, through and through.

Jess seemed perfectly able to hold her own against the angel. "I don't care," She snapped.

Dean sucked in a large breath, preparing himself for what he was about to do. It was going to hurt like Hell, but he didn't really have a choice in the matter. "She can stay." He said the words with so much reluctance, it almost sounded like '_not in this lifetime, buddy.' _

But he couldn't just leave Sam's Jessica floundering in the dangerous world, not when anyone and everyone related to the Winchesters were at the top of a lot of hit lists. And if he turned Jess away now—when Sam had given so much, done everything in his power to protect the ones he loved—Dean was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to live with himself. It was the least Dean could do. Cas was right; Jess was safest with Dean. Even if it did feel like walking on burning embers.

Dean swallowed every protest he wanted to hurl, letting them all slid heavily to the bottom of his stomach. He lifted his head, forced himself to meet both sets of blue eyes sitting across from him, and repeated his words. "She can stay,"

And if it felt like Dean was crumbling from the inside out, he wasn't going to say anything.

TBC

More is yet to come. Going with the flow, while trying to dam up the flow at the same time and put some kind of comprehensible structure in all this mess inside my brain.


End file.
